Assignment 3 Topic Unit 5:
Grace Kaspersma
"Mandatory vaccination of health personnel is required to ensure the right to healthcare
during a future pandemic with similar impact to COVID-19"
Healthcare professionals in Belgium will be given until April 1 to be vaccinated, otherwise they will be
fired. The federal government has announced (NOS Nieuws, 2021).
Vaccination is an essential control tool for the global COVID-19 epidemic. One of the most promising
methods of containing a pandemic is widespread vaccination to develop herd immunity. Vaccine
reluctance, on the other hand, represents a public health risk that is still prevalent among healthcare
workers (Li et al., 2021). Still, Health care workers who oppose obligatory vaccinations have said that
their rights to choose, liberty, and autonomy are not respected (Gualano et al., 2019). This essay
explores why vaccinating health personnel should not be mandatory during a future pandemic with a
similar impact to COVID-19.
Mandatory vaccination raises complex subjects since healthcare workers are more subjected to
vaccine-preventable diseases and face a higher risk of transmitting them to patients, their attitudes
toward mandatory vaccination have a direct impact on patient safety (Gualano et al., 2019). On the
other hand, opponents say it unquestionably infringes on the right to autonomy, which contains the
right to turn down medical interventions (Gualano et al., 2019). Mandatory vaccination also violates
the right to privacy guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Wise,
2021). Additionally, mandatory vaccination for healthcare personnel also strengthens the stigma
attached to individuals who do not comply and could influence mental health (Habakus et al., 2012).
According to research conducted in Egypt, more than 75% of healthcare personnel did not receive
adequate information regarding the COVID vaccine or did not trust the information (Fares et al.,
2021). This is not unreasonable since proof of the safety and efficacy of many vaccines is still being
gathered (Flood et al., 2021). Furthermore, research on vaccine safety may be insufficient. There
have been no randomized controlled trials comparing the total health outcomes of vaccinated and
unvaccinated individuals. Nonetheless, since 1988, the vaccine injury compensation program has
given well over $2 billion worth of damage to over 2500 families (Habakus et al., 2012). For this
reason, mandatory vaccination is not proportional, and subsidiarity does not apply when health care
personnel is mandatory to get vaccinated.
In conclusion, obligatory vaccination of health personnel is a major infringement of human rights and
should not be considered. Healthcare workers should make their own decisions. When governments
want more healthcare staff to be vaccinated, it is critical that they do everything possible to assure
the safety of vaccines and provide accurate and complete information about vaccines to health
personnel.
